<div>The road to dinner is paved with disappointing inventions. Every cook has them, the piece of kit they were convinced would revolutionise their kitchen, only for it to add to the clutter. The Tefal Cook4Me has clutter written all over it. Certainly, if you judge it by its claims for itself as an ‘Intelligent multicooker that cooks for you’ it’s an abject failure. It no more cooks for you than your stove will. You still have to chop the onions. You still have to brown the meat. You still have to stir the pot.<br /><br />It does have functionality, however, even though it takes a while to work out exactly what that functionality might be, for the accompanying literature is rather coy. Eventually I clock that the Cook4Me is a pressure cooker — a term never used in the instruction manual —with a heating element and, on the front, a whizzy computer interface with about as much processing power as a high-end mobile phone circa 1997. It comes pre-loaded with 50 recipes. The idea is that you dial up your chosen recipe — chilli con carne say, or beef and ale casserole — and it will guide you through the process from start to finish, from listing ingredients through browning of meat to the final cook.<br /><br />The problems are legion. First you wouldn’t buy a cookbook with only 50 recipes, so a machine that’s meant to endure with that few is very odd indeed. At £220 you would think they’d slip in a USB port so you could update it, but no. <br /><br />Second, the screen, poorly angled to be read by an adult, only displays quantities of ingredients once, before telling you what to do with them. They have to supply a printed booklet to go alongside for reference, which rather defeats the object. It becomes a pressure cooker with a cookbook. Those have been around for 50 years.<br /><br />The recipes are also hideously short on detail. Only one mentions salt and pepper (though they are keen on shop bought cook-in-sauces and pastes). I decide to see what it can do with a whole chicken. It tells me to brown the bird so, unbidden, I do season it. Next I am told to cover it entirely with liquid. What is it thinking? Vermouth? Tizer? It doesn’t say. I go for stock from cube. The result 30 minutes later is a beautifully poached chicken and a rather good chicken broth, but mostly because I knew what I was doing.<br /><br />A recipe for a spring lamb stew followed to the letter produces passable results but needs a serious seasoning and reducing on the stove. Next I give it to my 15-year-old computer-literate son to play with. He chooses the beef taco recipe, dependent on a shop-bought spice mix. As he points out, it tells you to brown meat for three minutes but then doesn’t count you down despite having the capacity to do so. The result, like the lamb stew, needs work. We reduce it and punch up the seasoning. Doubtless Tefal would say the recipes are only a guide and that, in time, you’d learn to use it in your own way. In which case you might as well spend half the money and just get a good pressure cooker and a cookbook.<br /><br /></div>
<div>The road to dinner is paved with disappointing inventions. Every cook has them, the piece of kit they were convinced would revolutionise their kitchen, only for it to add to the clutter. The Tefal Cook4Me has clutter written all over it. Certainly, if you judge it by its claims for itself as an ‘Intelligent multicooker that cooks for you’ it’s an abject failure. It no more cooks for you than your stove will. You still have to chop the onions. You still have to brown the meat. You still have to stir the pot.<br /><br />It does have functionality, however, even though it takes a while to work out exactly what that functionality might be, for the accompanying literature is rather coy. Eventually I clock that the Cook4Me is a pressure cooker — a term never used in the instruction manual —with a heating element and, on the front, a whizzy computer interface with about as much processing power as a high-end mobile phone circa 1997. It comes pre-loaded with 50 recipes. The idea is that you dial up your chosen recipe — chilli con carne say, or beef and ale casserole — and it will guide you through the process from start to finish, from listing ingredients through browning of meat to the final cook.<br /><br />The problems are legion. First you wouldn’t buy a cookbook with only 50 recipes, so a machine that’s meant to endure with that few is very odd indeed. At £220 you would think they’d slip in a USB port so you could update it, but no. <br /><br />Second, the screen, poorly angled to be read by an adult, only displays quantities of ingredients once, before telling you what to do with them. They have to supply a printed booklet to go alongside for reference, which rather defeats the object. It becomes a pressure cooker with a cookbook. Those have been around for 50 years.<br /><br />The recipes are also hideously short on detail. Only one mentions salt and pepper (though they are keen on shop bought cook-in-sauces and pastes). I decide to see what it can do with a whole chicken. It tells me to brown the bird so, unbidden, I do season it. Next I am told to cover it entirely with liquid. What is it thinking? Vermouth? Tizer? It doesn’t say. I go for stock from cube. The result 30 minutes later is a beautifully poached chicken and a rather good chicken broth, but mostly because I knew what I was doing.<br /><br />A recipe for a spring lamb stew followed to the letter produces passable results but needs a serious seasoning and reducing on the stove. Next I give it to my 15-year-old computer-literate son to play with. He chooses the beef taco recipe, dependent on a shop-bought spice mix. As he points out, it tells you to brown meat for three minutes but then doesn’t count you down despite having the capacity to do so. The result, like the lamb stew, needs work. We reduce it and punch up the seasoning. Doubtless Tefal would say the recipes are only a guide and that, in time, you’d learn to use it in your own way. In which case you might as well spend half the money and just get a good pressure cooker and a cookbook.<br /><br /></div>
